Guardians are people you name to take care of your minor children if you are no longer able to do so. Very few people have picked guardians for their children if something were to happen to them. If you don't choose who your guardians are going to be for your children, someone has to choose for you. A judge is going to make that decision, based on the information they have available. However, they might not know everything. They might not make the same choice you would have.
Is Naming A Guardian Enough?
There are lots of issues when you think about who you're going to name as a guardian. If you pick a married couple to be the guardians of your children, do you want it to be those people only if they remain married? If they were to split up, which one would you want to remain the guardian of your children? What if something happens to the person you named and now you have no one named? You want to have backup guardians named; in case the first-place people are not able to serve.
Do I Need To Consider Excluding Possible Guardians That I Had Never Thought Of?
We focus a lot on working with parents of minor children and we have very detailed documents regarding the children that go above and beyond what most estate planning attorneys cover. One of those aspects that we look at is whether you need to confidentially exclude potential guardians. You may have multiple siblings and you don't want them to be fighting over who is going to be getting your children.
Sometimes, one sibling might look like a great guardian on paper. They might be very successful, have a good job, and have a nice home. Another sibling isn't so successful and is not as financially secure, but you know that the more successful sibling has an issue that isn't public. You don’t want that person raising your children. The judge might never know that private information and might choose that sibling to be the guardian of your children. If you have someone in your life that might potentially step up to be the guardian and you know they should not be raising your children, you need to plan ahead and confidentially exclude those people from being in the running.
How Can I Pass On More Than Just My Financial Wealth To My Children?
Another thing that is somewhat unique to our practice is passing on not just financial assets, but wisdom, experiences, or stories to your children. We use a three-meeting plan system and on that third meeting, we do what we call family legacy recordings. We record a series of questions and you get an audio recording of you sharing your wisdom, stories, and memories with your children so that in the future, they can revisit you. When people come back over the years, we'll record further conversations and they can create a library of recordings for their family.
How To Determine Who To Appoint As A Standby And A Permanent Guardian?
For the standby temporary guardian, you want someone you know and trust, who is local and can get to your house within about 30 minutes. This way, your children never have to go into the custody of the state while waiting for the long term guardians to come. For long-term guardians, you want to pick people you think would raise your children similar to the way that you would want them to be raised. Financial considerations should never be an issue; you should never avoid picking someone to be your guardian because they don't have enough money.
As a parent, you must ensure that your children are taken care of, and that includes financial security. You should have life insurance policies in place if you don't have the assets together so that financial concerns are never an issue when you're nominating your guardians. As part of our planning for children, we prepare detailed instructions for guardians to give them information on how you would want your children to be raised.
What Decisions Can Be Made For My Child Or Children By A Guardian?
A long-term guardian takes on the role of the parent, so they can make the same decisions that you would make. Once approved by the court, they are the new parents of your children and can make every decision.
What Happens If You Don't Include Provisions For A Guardian?
If you have not named a guardian, the court has no choice but to have the judge decide who should be the guardians for your children. Hopefully, you have family members who are going to step up and say that they want to raise your children. The bigger issue can be when you have multiple people step up and say they are the ones who should become the guardians of your children. Then, you can have years of contention and fighting in court to figure out who is going to be the ultimate guardian of these children.
Protecting The Assets That You Leave To Your Children Well Into The Future
Another thing you can do with trust-based planning is leave your financial assets to your children in a protected fashion. Most people would like to own their assets in a way that couldn't be taken away by a lawsuit or creditors. It is very difficult to protect our assets that way in California. However, with trust-based planning, you can leave assets to your children in an ongoing trust, also called a lifetime asset protection trust, so that these assets are passed to your children in a protected fashion. If they were to get sued, those assets wouldn't be touchable. If they were to get divorced, they wouldn't lose half of those assets in the divorce. If they had credit issues, the creditors wouldn't be able to touch those assets. It is a great gift for your children to leave them these assets in a protected fashion. It gives them the incentive to leave the money in the trust and create something out of it.
For more information on Guardianship And Its Meaning In California, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (951) 332-7079 today.